CBS 6: Inflation and slow recovery impact upstate as businesses adapt to new economic realities

March 17th, 2025

by Emma Quinn – Mon, March 17th 2025 at 6:00 PM

CAPITAL REGION, NY (WRGB) — The start of COVID-19 brought many unknowns for everyone, especially business owners.

“Every day we were learning something new or the state was coming out with a new directive and businesses were struggling to adapt,” said Justin Wilcox, Executive Director of Upstate United.

We all remember when the shelves were empty and no toilet paper was in sight! Supply chain issues were some of the hardest challenges for all businesses.

“I can’t think of one that wasn’t, right? Whether you’re talking about manufacturers, whether you’re talking about folks that were in retail and the fact that they were importing lumber,” added Wilcox.

Another challenge, determining what was considered essential; real estate agent Rebecca Cavalieri and her team at Gabler Realty were told to stay home.

Once they could have remote showings, Cavalieri says interest rates soared as people were flocking from the cities to the suburbs.

“It didn’t matter what kind of shack you were selling, it was selling for like 20% over the asking price,” said Cavalieri. “It was still a very strong seller’s market and the inventory had significantly reduced.”

For example, in 2015 there were 21,000 homes on the market, jump to 2019 it was 19,000, by 2022 it was 14,000.

“Then for ’23 and ’24, we’ve only had around 10,000 homes that have been sold or expired, never sold on the market,” Cavalieri added.

Five years later the region is still recovering, the housing market still has a lull in inventory.

Inflation and supply chain issues are still proving a challenge for consumers.

“One of the things that we looked at and we know from looking at the data and the comptroller, particularly did reports on this, is that our recovery was slower than the rest of the nation has been slower,” Wilcox added.